About

Don't you know better than to wake a man at three in the afternoon?

This Site

I'm not exactly sure what this site will become. I've never been good at keeping a journal, and I doubt I'll do well with a blog. Still, I prefer to write roughly blog-post-sized chunks of thought. More likely, I'll use this site primarily as a portal for others to see my projects and for anyone that needs research sources. Secondarily, I'll post editorials here, but being a bit of a perfectionist, I like to make very sure my ideas are well-digested before I share them widely.

The name of this site comes from a typo. Let's face it, 't' and 'y' are right next to each other, so it's easy to type both when you only wanted one. Turns out a lot of things I name are named by happy coincidence.

Me

as a Programmer

I primarily program web applications, command-line tools and programming languages. I enjoy functional programming, persistent data, rich type systems, parametric modules, first-class control, and metaprogramming. I occasionally like to exercise with some systems programming in C and/or assembly.

I am finishing up my master's degree in computer science. I have only to finish my thesis, "On Secure First-class Control", which integrates the theories of exceptions, continuations and dynamic-wind, and provides a basis for designing production-grade languages that can take advantage of control-flow abstraction.

as a Conlanger

The word "conlang" is short for "constructed language". It has since been verbed into "conlanging": the act of constructing a language. Normally, conlanging is specific to constructed human language, and this is how I use it on this site, but there are a few people who believe that conlanging includes computer languages as well.

I enjoy learning how human language works, and conlanging gives me ample opportunity for investigation, but what keeps me going is an artistic drive. There is a particular kind of beauty in the abstract patterns of a language that takes an odd kind of mind to witness. How many people do you know that would want to learn some obscure language because "ejective affricates and VSO are fun"? I know one. I don't have any point to make, and I don't care if no one ever speaks one of my languages; as far as I'm concerned, conlanging is simply art for art's sake, and perhaps that's the only thing it should be.

as a Philosopher

Philosophy sounds all high-and-mighty, but it just means I think about things a lot, and I think as critically as I can. I did have some philosophical training at university, and I did well in it, but I can't say I approach philosophy in the same way the professional field does. Personally, the idea that there's some "authority" responsible for independent investigation of the truth strikes me as odd anyway.

I'm particularly interested in epistemology and the philosophy of self and identity. Questions of consciousness, sentience, free will, personhood, counterfactuals, memory, the relationships between science, faith, and skepticism are among my most considered.

Among my unusual beliefs are:

  • Possible worlds is the wrong way to approach counterfactuals.
  • Free will is compatible with determinism, provided some form of retrocausiality.
  • Any god I am willing to believe in must not be accessible by science, logic, or language.
  • Thought is information exchange, and everything is exchanging information.